Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ping maneuvers and near misses. It was well-received by the raucous crowd of the once
penal settlement. I was immersed in a sea of Australian accents, sights, and sounds. Then it
was time for the sheep dog trials. I sat up and took notice. The black and white Border Col-
lies were fantastic. Reading their stern masters minds, they performed shepherding feats
of staggering complexities. I joined the audience in laughing out loud and clapping de-
lightedly in well-earned respect for these brilliant best friends of man. I treated myself to a
candy apple and my second ice cream in five years. My feet were beginning to touch down,
and tiredness was creeping over me. I made my weary way back to the bus stop and almost
fell asleep, nearly missing my stop.
The following day Val accompanied Wiggy as they drove us to the unpronounceable sta-
tion, and, after a fond farewell, we were again seated in a swaying coach clattering our
return to Bundaberg where men were men, the rum tasted great, and it rained soot all over
the boats in the river when they burn the cane fields before harvest.
Wiggy passed away a short while later, and Val followed him a few years afterward. We
were very glad to have met them; they were good people. They generously gave us double
what we had asked for in painting their house, and Wiggy had taught me how to hang up
a pair of jeans on a washing line that I still employ to this day! He died of lung cancer,
having never smoked a day in his life, but he had worked designing and installing cigarette
making machines in the once great country of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where some of
the world's best tobaccos had been farmed.
One morning Gavin came back to the boat armed with a letter he had received from a
former boat owner he knew down in Mooloolaba. He had been invited to help fix up a
yacht and planned on taking off in a few months time. I was shocked at the news. I realized
again how much I had come to rely on him and how alone I would be without his cheerful
companionship.
Around this time we had also been invited by the American couple to sail in tandem down
south to Fraser Island and the coastal waterway between this island and the shoreline. Ap-
parently it was a great sail, and we would go as far as Tin Can Bay on the south side of the
biggest sand dune in the world. We agreed to follow them in Déjà vu. We had been paid
from a previous job, as well as the painting job with Val and Wiggy, so we had money. We
stocked up at the local supermarket and arranged to rendezvous at the Burnett River mouth.
When we arrived, the couple was there already, having a faster boat than ours. He had just
had a terrible fallout with the boatyard owner for whatever reason, we never did discover
why, and they couldn't leave fast enough. We decided to all head off the following day.
The trip lasted about ten days and was one of the most wonderful sailing experiences of my
life. The weather was perfect. Spring was in the air, and the sun sparkled on the calm, blue
